AP govt approves attachment of Raju's properties

On the request of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Andha Pradesh government on Thursday approved the attachment of 44 properties belonging to the family members of the promoters of Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer Services Limited.

The properties, worth Rs 2.48 crore, are located in Ranga Reddy, East and West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh.

Ramalinga Raju, former promoter of Satyam, confessed in January 2009 that he had falsified the company’s accounts. Subsequently, the CBI arrested him and nine others and filed its first charge sheet in 2009 itself. The CBI, in July 2010, had initiated the process of attaching 425 properties, which were acquired by Raju and his family through 31 front companies, under the provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance of 1944.

Spread over 1,224 acre in Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Bangalore and Nagpur, these properties were acquired by the Raju family by selling their shares in Satyam between April 10, 1999, and June 30, 2005. Of these, nearly 100 of them are worth over Rs 3 crore each.

The government had already approved the attachment of properties worth Rs 3.87 crore  belonging to the family members of Raju.